21 June 2006

Jack Murtha - worse than Abramoff?

Media darling and war hero Jack Murtha is being bitch slapped by the rightwing blogosphere. And with very good reason. When the Haditha story was published by Time Magazine's Tim McGirk, Murtha was the first to go to the national press and claim that the Marines were "guilty of murder and covering it up." All this without a shred of evidence that the marines did anything wrong. Hugh Hewitt wrote, "I cannot imagine a more irresponsible statement from Congressman Murtha given that the investigation is still open. The Congressman should explain his sources, or face the charge that he has judged the men involved before the evidence is even compiled."

Up until a year ago, Murtha was a nobody. He was known only in restrictive Washington circles. More than likely he was trolling the inner sanctum circles of elitist, leftwing cocktail parties. With his recent presidential aspirations percolating to the surface, going full force against our troops, the war effort and the president seemed the only way for him to get his non-agenda into the MSM. And taking a cue from Cindy Sheehan, it is working. The leftists in the MSM love Murtha, the DailyKOS wants to have his love child and, the spotlight is truly blinding him right now.

Last June, the Los Angeles Times reported how the ranking member on the defense appropriations subcommittee has a brother, Robert Murtha, whose lobbying firm represents 10 companies that received more than $20 million from last year's defense spending bill. "Clients of the lobbying firm KSA Consulting -- whose top officials also include former congressional aide Carmen V. Scialabba, who worked for Rep. Murtha as a congressional aide for 27 years -- received a total of $20.8 million from the bill," the L.A. Times reported. In early 2004, according to Roll Call, Mr. Murtha "reportedly leaned on U.S. Navy officials to sign a contract to transfer the Hunters Point Shipyard to the city of San Francisco." Laurence Pelosi, nephew of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, at the time was an executive of the company which owned the rights to the land. The same article also reported how Mr. Murtha has been behind millions of dollars worth of earmarks in defense appropriations bills that went to companies owned by the children of fellow Pennsylvania Democrat, Rep. Paul Kanjorski. Meanwhile, the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan campaign-finance watchdog group, lists Mr. Murtha as the top recipient of defense industry dollars in the current 2006 election cycle.

The new media did some digging and found that Murtha was listed as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the 1980 Abscam scandal. While a Nexus-Lexus search shows that Abramoff stories have been published hundreds of time, Murtha's "indiscretions" have been nary a whimper. Aaahhhh. Being a Leftist means never having to say "Double Standard."

Without taking anything away from his decorated war service, I think Murtha is losing touch with reality or, simply using the Iraq War to further his own political ambitions.

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“And then finally I want to say that we need one idea, and we’re not thinking about a solution to the problem … And the one idea is, how we are going to exterminate White people because that in my estimation is the only conclusion I have come to. We have to exterminate white people off the face of the planet.“